a couple of Etienne Tardif snips followed by > my comments
From these you identify actions and potential future flags as well as preventables. In this case, I should have had a friend feed my bees in August (or teach one how to) to ensure they had plenty of time to get ready. I should have pulled my honey before I left. 

How do you teach a new beekeeper? You can teach them to think, look for small details and learn to make decisions based on the information they have. How many hives are lost because of inaction? I do teach them a standard approach (calendar based on local data) but I also teach them to look for critical information (weather, incoming pollen, moisture on the landing board in the morning, growth rate in the hive (frames of bees), droppings on the screen bottom board tray, etc...).

>the first sentence is exactly what imho all beekeeping is 'local' and the context of the local environment directs a lot of beekeeper activity.

>the second parts suggest to me an ongoing problem loosely associated with the first item in that a lot of folks do not deal well with complexity and of course all biological systems are complex.  we do a couple of large bee schools here in Central Texas... typically +500 in attendance but as you can imagine currently halted due to the current problem with 'the virus'.  in these we have 'ask the expert' forums and I seem to get asked to participate quite frequently. folks in the audience seem to always want 'the answer' and when I invariable tell them 'it depends' you can tell by their facial expressions that this is not 'the answer' they wanted. 

>I would also suggest to you another question related to the last snippet... 'how many hives are lost due to unnecessary manipulation, beekeeper action or equipment that really does not fit the local environment'?  imho beekeeping is a hands on activity and although book learning may get you started in the right direction it will not get you to the point of really having any understanding of bees or the capacity to manage bees at any given location. I have kept bees in about a half dozen + locations across the US and each location has it own unique challenges.

>Personally it sounds like you are doing a pretty good job in the educational aspects of beekeeping.  I do somewhat the same thing with graduate students that come to the Texas A&M Bee Lab and most have absolutely no experience in keeping bees when they show up.  My way is to show them the basic, try to hang with them till they look comfortable and then walk away and tell them to call me if they have problems or questions. The smarter ones seem to know exactly when they need to make that call. 

Gene... currently hanging out on the west coast.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html